HE humorous and dialectic literature of America owes more to Charles Follen Adams perhaps than to any other contributor who has not made literature a business or depended upon his pen for his livelihood. There is not a pretentious book of humorous readings or popular selections of late years which has not enriched its pages from this pleasingly funny man who delineates the German-American character and imitates its dialect with an art that is so true to nature as to be well-nigh perfection. “The Puzzled Dutchman;” “Mine Vamily;” “Mine Moder-in-Law;” “Der Vater Mill;” “Der Drummer,” and, above all, “Dot Leedle Yawcob Strauss,” have become classics of their kind and will not soon suffer their author to be forgotten.
Charles Follen Adams was born in Dorchester, Mass., April 21, 1842, where he received a common school education, leaving school at fifteen years of age to take a position in a business house in Boston. This place he occupied until August, 1862, when he enlisted, at the age of twenty, in the Thirteenth Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteers, and saw service in a number of hard-fought battles. At Gettysburg, in 1863, he was wounded and held a prisoner for three days until the Union forces recaptured the town. After the close of the war he resumed business, and succeeded in placing himself at the head of a large business house in Boston, where he has continued to reside.
It was not until 1870 that Mr. Adams wrote his first poem, and it was two years later that his first dialectic effort, “The Puzzled Dutchman,” appeared and made his name known. From that time he begun to contribute “as the spirit moved him” to the local papers, “Oliver Optic’s Magazine,” and, now and then, to “Scribner’s.” In 1876 he became a regular contributor to the “Detroit Free Press,” his “Leedle Yawcob Strauss” being published in that paper in June, 1876. For many years all his productions were published in that journal, and did much to enhance its growing popularity as a humorous paper.
As a genial, companionable man in business and social circles, Mr. Adams has as great distinction among his friends as he holds in the literary world as a humorist. His house is one of marked hospitality where the fortunate guest always finds a cordial welcome.
DER DRUMMER.[¹]
[¹] Special Permission of the Author.
HO puts oup at der pest hotel,
Und dakes his oysders on der schell,